Impact of COVID-19 on the Exploitation of Immigrant Workers in the United States

Haily Rosario -

An immigrant worker can be a Dominican sewing machine operator, a Russian constructor worker, or a Bulgarian meat processor. Yet, what these three workers have in common is that as immigrant workers, they are prone to exploitation in the workplace. Their status as undocumented or on temporary or seasonal visas, makes them more vulnerable to unemployment due to a lack of social and economic power.

Coming from a family of immigrants, I’ve seen first hand the consequences of this inequity. From hearing stories on how my grandmother went store to store looking for a job, to seeing other family members get denied employment because they couldn’t speak fluent English, it has always been clear that immigrants are often in an unstable position with regard to the labor market. Studies suggest that discrimination strongly increases in times of a slack labour market, such as a global pandemic (1). Immigrants usually have fewer networks of contact to help them find jobs than native workers, making them even more prone to unemployment in the labor market and financial struggle due to Covid-19.

Those who do find employment are still more likely to suffer poor workplace treatment such as lower wages and uncomfortable working conditions, than native-born workers (2). Once again, these conditions have only worsened since the start of the global pandemic. Immigrant workers are not entitled to workers compensation, health care, social security payments, paid sick leave, or special payments related to the pandemic because of their migrant status (3). The lack of income during such a vulnerable time such as a global pandemic, has left immigrant workers, including those who have been infected by Covid-19, with no choice but to continue showing up to work regardless of the health danger it can impose on them and their families. The impacts of these sacrifices are prevalent among different work industries with a majority immigrant of workers. Below are two industries where these inequities are most prominent.

Meat-Processing Factories

Meat-processing factories are designed for efficient production at minimal cost with small regard to treatment of workers, the environment, or animals. In the United States, they employ an estimated 525,000 workers in approximately 3,500 facilities nationwide (4). This workforce is predominantly migrant and immigrant workers, often undocumented (5). These workers are tasked to work in noisy conditions in close proximity with one another as the animals progress along a fast-paced assembly line (6). Noisy conditions often force workers to shout in order to communicate. Shouting, along with lack of social distancing, makes workers more prone to the spread of the virus due to the lack of safety precautions in place. More specifically, the presence of a meat-processing facility in a county in the United States has been associated with an 800% and 1,000% increased per capita infection rates compared with similar counties without meat processing plants (7).

Agriculture

When the global pandemic struck, many agricultural workers were left without employment due to rising Covid-19 cases from the lack of social distancing and the high prevalence of transmission in this field of work (8). Given the high demand for their products, farmworker employers often refused to offer their workers testing or threatened workers if they sought testing (9). Half of farmworkers in the United States are undocumented, and therefore excluded from unemployment benefits and federal stimulus checks (10). With limited sources of income, immigrant agricultural workers have no choice but to continue working under unsafe conditions. Consequently, by October 2020, 162,000 agricultural workers in the United States were estimated to have tested positive for Covid-19, many of these including immigrant agricultural workers (11).

Opportunities for Improvement

Immigrant workers often bear the labor-intensive tasks that are essential to producing goods and services that are essential to everyday life. Society’s reliance on immigrant workers has grown from the global pandemic due to the high demand of many necessities. With society’s growth of reliance on immigrant workers, there should also be a growth of reliance immigrant workers have on their employers. Immigrant workers should be able to work under conditions that do not put their health in danger. If they feel their health is in danger, they should be able to feel comfortable enough to put their health first without worrying about the income they are losing.

Advocating for policies in favor of sick leave compensation for immigrant workers would push employers against taking advantage of undocumented workers who have limited sources of income. In turn, this will help create a safer workplace environment for all workers involved because immigrant workers will no longer feel immense pressure to show up to work when their health is in danger and risk harming other workers around them.

The work immigrant workers bring has been essential before the global pandemic, during, and it will be essential afterwards as well. The development of improved working conditions for immigrant workers is a critical effort to continue rebuilding our society.

Works Cited

1. OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus. “What is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on immigrants and their children?” 19 October 2020. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2331502420952752

2. Reid, Alison, et al. “Migrant Workers, Essential Work, and Covid‐19.” American Journal of Industrial Medicine, vol. 64, no. 2, 2020, pp. 73–77., https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.23209.

3. Fassani F, Mazz J. “A vulnerable workforce: migrant workers in the COVID-19 pandemic.” 2020. https://ec.europa.eu/jrc. Accessed September 14, 2020.

4. Waltenburg MA, Victoroff T, Rose CE, et al.  2020. “Update: COVID-19 among workers in meat and poultry processing facilities―United States,” April–May 2020. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32644986/

5. Reid, Alison, et al. “Migrant Workers, Essential Work, and Covid‐19.” American Journal of Industrial Medicine, vol. 64, no. 2, 2020, pp. 73–77., https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.23209.

6. Waltenburg MA, Victoroff T, Rose CE, et al.  2020. “Update: COVID-19 among workers in meat and poultry processing facilities―United States,” April–May 2020. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32644986/

7. Reid, Alison, et al. “Migrant Workers, Essential Work, and Covid‐19.” American Journal of Industrial Medicine, vol. 64, no. 2, 2020, pp. 73–77., https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.23209.

8. Reid, Alison, et al. “Migrant Workers, Essential Work, and Covid‐19.” American Journal of Industrial Medicine, vol. 64, no. 2, 2020, pp. 73–77., https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.23209.

9. Reid, Alison, et al. “Migrant Workers, Essential Work, and Covid‐19.” American Journal of Industrial Medicine, vol. 64, no. 2, 2020, pp. 73–77., https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.23209.

10. OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus. “What is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on immigrants and their children?” 19 October 2020. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2331502420952752

11. Reid, Alison, et al. “Migrant Workers, Essential Work, and Covid‐19.” American Journal of Industrial Medicine, vol. 64, no. 2, 2020, pp. 73–77., https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.23209.